The Bible and Mandated Abortion

The Idea of forcing a mother to terminate the life of her baby, as it continued to grow in her womb is a horrific notion. It sounds like something that would be written into a movie plot. The totalitarian government has decided that there were going to be too many babies born, so certain women will then be forced to kill their children. This sounds horrible, but there are scenes very similar to this occurring every day in places like China and North Korea. I would hope that regardless of our stance on abortion, we would see this practice as heinous. Forcing women to face the trauma of giving up their child is inhumane, and hopefully not something that will be experienced here. But we have to ask, is there any biblical evidence to support such an action? I know that since there is no evidence for the support for abortion in any circumstance, the answer seems to be clear. But we have been looking at an article by Curtis F., and he has given us five verses that he says proves that the Bible does, in fact, support abortion. And in this “proof,” Curtis says that the mother’s consent is not even needed. The text is Numbers 5:27 Curtis writes

Numbers 5:27 – Abortion Is Okay, If The Mom Doesn’t Approve “If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse.” This is a fun one. Earlier in Numbers, it’s stated that, if a man suspects his wife of sleeping with another man, he may bring her to a priest who will create some sort of magic potion with water and dirt. The woman is then made to drink said magic potion. If she has not cheated on her husband, nothing will happen. If the woman has cheated and is carrying another man’s child, though, the mystical dirt water — we can call it magic mud — will cause her to immediately miscarry. This is a directive coming straight from God himself to Moses. So even if pro-lifers can dodge all these other verses, they can’t deny that this one essentially says, “Abortion is okay as long as it’s forced upon a woman, against her will, for cheating on her husband.” Yeah… that’s way more acceptable than what pro-choice advocates are going for…

Now, I hate to point this out, but there is nothing even in the translation Curtis chooses that would indicate that the woman was carrying a child. This is assumed by F. because the woman’s stomach swells and the word “miscarries” is used. But I will show that this is a wrong assumption. We have to understand that once again had F. bothered to dig a little that he would see that these clues are not in the original and do not show up in modern translations. Rather than the woman “womb miscarries,” the stomach swells and the thigh rots. And this points to a false pregnancy and being made barren, thus making the woman a curse. Rather than forced abortion, this was an outward sign that she was unfaithful and stops her from further promiscuity.

Since there was no child to abort, the whole premise is false. There was no abortion forced or otherwise. As we saw yesterday, Curtis’ proofs were no more than sad justifications for supporting sin.